[joshu]

I love this. I collect interesting obsolete hardware; I bought a Light L16 recently for cheap but it can no longer update itself, unfortunately. Lytro is on my list as well.

The lytro itself is a lightfield / plenoptic camera. It captures the angle of light coming into the camera as well, which lets you calculate focus AFTER the photo has been taken. Focus is, of course, itself just another computation. http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/

[d1sxeyes]

That’s a really interesting way of phrasing it I’d never fully considered: of course you are right, a physical lens is just performing predictable mathematical transformations on the light passing through it.

Thank you, that was something of a revelation in understanding how these cameras actually work.

[weinzierl]

"just performing predictable mathematical transformations"

Just linear algebra, to be precise. A lens is just a matrix and rays are simply vectors. Combining lenses is merely matrix multiplication and complex optical systems can be represented by the result, which is a plain simple matrix again. The Eigenvalues tell you interesting properties of your optical system.

I've always enjoyed this part of physics because it is so simple and elegant, yet so powerful.

If you look closely linear algebra pops up in many places.

[fhars]

Well, sort of... there goes quite a bit of materials science and engineering into making and shaping the glass of a lens to make it behave like a matrix (i.e. to extend the range in which this linear approximation to the actual behavior of a blob of glass is valid).

[gnramires]

Blobs of glass are actually overwhelmingly linear :) Non-linear effects in optics are generally negligible unless you go to very high energies (scattering, like raman scattering) or special materials (like fluorescent ones). You need a high powered laser or certain materials for those regimes.

That said, the geometric functions (i.e. the positions of rays w.r.t. other objects) are probably non-linear in the object position parameters indeed, and intensities certainly are (example: moving an object in front of a screen by X amount changes the illumination in front of the screen non-linearly): it's important to keep in mind what we mean by linearity (it's in terms of light field intensities for a fixed geometry scene) -- the scene are the transfer function coefficients.

What really makes things complicated in real life is (1) the presence of noise; (2) imperfections (and unknowns) in your physical/geometric apparatus. Even if you know the system perfectly, noise generally disallows reverting (or easily reverting) transfer functions, i.e. undoing blurs and arbitrarily refocusing images with simple detectors. The imperfections and even lack of rigidity of lenses and your system add even more difficulty. That's why making a simple computational lens is not so easy.

[gumby]

It sure does. But if you can replace many of the lenses with computation it's a big win. If you can compensate for some of the inherent aberration in a lens design, or specific manufacturing variation in a lens, its an even bigger win.

In other words, one does not obviate the other.

[ddalex]

Going on a metaphysical tangent, it is a bit weird that A LOT of physical processes can be modelled with linear algebra, and don't require something way more advanced ...

[fhars]

That is actually deliberate, we tend to organize everyday life and the devices we build around processes that are easy to model, that is why many things look like linear processes and harmonic oscillators (the first two term of the Taylor expansion of the actual behavior). We change the type of spring we use if the current one starts to wear out early under normal operational conditions.

[IIAOPSW]

Let me rephrase on his behalf. Isn't it curious just how unreasonably capable our math is at expressing those physical laws of the universe to which we did not invent.

[jamiek88]

I don’t know, seems a bit Anthropic Puddle to me.

[Someone]

I think it’s more that we developed linear algebra that made us approximate physical processes by linear models. If you look close enough, almost nothing is linear.

For example, we happily draw a linear scale on a mercury thermometer, even though we know that not to be correct, even if we incorrectly assume that the coefficient of expansion of mercury is independent of its temperature. Also, try explaining why the conversions between Celsius, Fahrenheit and Kelvin are all linear (answer for Kelvin and Celsius: they technically only are since 2019, when we redefined them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_redefinition_of_the_SI_ba...). I think the Fahrenheit scale was redefined as a shift on the Kelvin one around the same time)

[joshu]

More importantly, focusing a lens is one of many possible transformations. Look up coded apertures. so much is possible.

[dreamcompiler]

Lenses compute 2D Fourier transforms. And they do it really, really fast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_optics#Fourier_transfo...

[slopperyslip]

Was curious about a Light L19 seeing how cheap it is now and did some digging around for how to update. This Github project from an XDA thread may do the trick https://github.com/helloavo/Light-L16-Archive

[icelancer]

Oh wow, this camera! I saw it years ago and never thought about it again. It's such an interesting idea for my field of work that wants variable focus throughout a video shot with high speed photography, but can't get it with the equipment that exists on the market.

[fire]

thanks for this, I've been needing to factory reset my L16 but I couldn't locate any of the firmware

[joshu]

Thank you for this.

[sacnoradhq]

-- Media --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smell-O-Vision

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc

Toshiba Twin S-VHS changer https://youtu.be/aEEYuJw7vFk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitClips

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_Rockers

0.85" / 22 mm HDD used in MP3 players

https://web.archive.org/web/20120718025547/http://www.toshib...

-- Computing peripherals --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat

https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/12416/Logitech-Cyber...

-- Alternative computers --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PCjr

-- Electronics --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsela

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathkit

Grandparents had a Heathkit TV like this with an ultrasonic remote that could also be controlled by jingling keys:

https://www.nostalgickitscentral.com/heath/products/tv/gr250...

== Of course ==

Grandpa's Polaroid 350

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Corporation#/media/Fi...

[joshu]

I have a cuecat and a pc jr keyboard in my collection, as it focuses on tech innovation failure. A bunch of other items on this list are good additions.

I should probably make a list of my collection. A working juicero. A rolleron. An itanium cpu. A working General Magic device. The iBook I wrote del.icio.us on…

I had capsela as a kid. Hadn’t thought about it in decades. Thank you.

[jacquesm]

> Grandparents had a Heathkit TV like this with an ultrasonic remote that could also be controlled by jingling keys

I wished my Sony A7 had such a nice and elegant shortcut for remote video recording. Instead it has a crappy little remote control that eats batteries like candy and that seems to un-pair spontaneously in mid recording session and other such niceties.

[steanne]

librarything still sells and works with cuecats